What Consumes Us?

~ Arundhati


Today, a friend showed me a picture he had taken in Mumbai. It showed an emaciated laborer, sitting on the mound of dirt he had dug, perhaps, to lay the cables for hight speed internet. Behind him, caught in the moment of time, was an imported car, which was just about to zoom past him. The laborer's forehead shone as bright as the car, but his bare ribs were no match to the shining metal. I was fascinated; transfixed at the starkness of the picture.

"What attracts us about poverty?" I asked the friend.

"Poverty is beautiful in picture!" He said. And, the truth of it ran a chill down my spine.

Then, on my way home, between the smatterings of light rock on the radio, I was bombarded with a motley bunch of advertisements of cars and jewelry, furniture and accessories, perfumes and dresses - many of the objects, immensely enticing but way beyond what I can afford.

Then, I realized, that on my fragile island of so called prosperity, I was, perhaps, as poor as the laborer. Only, the things that I crave for are different from what he does. I wonder if someone took my picture, would they find me sitting on the mound of dirt of my work, while, behind me, someone else zooms past in a swankier car or a designer dress to a million-dollar house on the hills? Would I look like a person impoverished, maybe not in body, but in spirit, by the demands placed by competition, comparison and jealousy?

When did this really happen that, what we consume, began to consume us?

I live in a country which is an epitome of consumerism. Here, life revolves around the holiday seasons when the stores come out with sales and specials and the consumers go berserk, shopping. The malls, for most, is a favorite weekend destination even during rest of the year. Everything, including your loved ones, is disposable and you are required to buy a new one, when the season changes. Here, even death is sold! You have to reserve your grave and choose your coffin, even before you die.

"Consume, consume more!" is the mantra of life, even if that means running into a debt of thousands of dollars. The exit strategy, for many people, is actually to declare bankruptcy or to die, before the mountain of debt crashes down on them!

But then, I look at India, my home country, and I find that it is no different. Even there, I see the people of my age and those younger every bit as entangled in the rat race as people here. The inflation is shooting and the prices of real estate would soon go beyond reach. The difference between the haves and the haves not is stark like never before, and the wisdom of elders - the values of frugality and simplicity are withering away and being replaced by the life of competition, greed and selfishness. This degeneration of values in a society that is thousands of years old is, perhaps, even more disturbing!

What is worst, I find that people in India are copying the West only superficially. The values of discipline, pride, cleanliness and the love of beauty which are so ingrained in the western society are conveniently ignored and the vices of materialism and individualism, physical gratification and promiscuity are upheld and cherished. The multinationals, whose loyalty lies only in the money, are more than happy to offer the bait for our feeding frenzy. They are ready to peddle to us whatever we ask, except the values - what we really must have. This is the story, not only of India but every developing country in the world.

Are we Indians ready for another kind of invasion - more subtle and more powerful than the British? Do we have the strength and the will to fight another battle for independence?

During the many years of study of Economics I have learned the single most principle of the science that Man's wants are unlimited and the resources to satisfy them are limited. As the whole world now joins the dance of consumerism, the demands we place on the resources of our fragile planet are immense. Already, things have begun to burst at the seams. The war between man and the Nature is at its peak. How long is it before Nature bails out? How far is the day when enough is enough, and the imbalance we are creating turns around and crushes the mankind under it's juggernaut?

In Hindu mythology, they say that the age that we live in - the Kaliyuga - is 'the age of the Merchant' and beyond this age, the world would come to an end. Is this, another gem of wisdom of our ancestors, who saw us all ultimately buried under the mountain of our own greed? Is this where we are heading, blindly but definitely, in spite of ourselves? Are we, finally, about to be recycled?